The 2005 IFRS survey is the second carried out by Mazars on this subject. Already in
2003, we surveyed 500 listed and non-listed companies in seven European
countries (Germany, Belgium, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands and the United
Kingdom), in order to ascertain, two years before the deadline, their level of readiness and
their general view of the imminent adoption of new accounting standards.
Today, with the conversion accomplished, it seemed pertinent to revisit and renew this
survey in a modified form.
This time around, we chose to limit our investigation to listed companies, for whom the
current year is the deadline for adopting IFRS.
In addition, we aimed to be more ambitious in our geographic coverage of Europe.
Consistent with Mazars' international reach, we enlarged our survey base to include five
additional European countries (Ireland, Luxembourg, Poland, the Czech Republic and
Turkey).
Four of these countries are members of the European Union, and the last strongly wishes
to join. We hoped to measure the attitudes of Turkish companies and their willingness to
adopt IFRS, within the context of the Ankara government's strong pursuit of EU
membership.
In all, more than 550 listed companies, chosen from among the largest market
capitalisations in each of 12 countries, replied to the 2005 IFRS survey undertaken by
Mazars.
An initial rapid overview of the main trends revealed by the survey highlights the diversity
of situations across Europe. Commonly perceived national characteristics of many large
European countries appear with an almost caricatural clarity. Thus, Italian companies
seem content with a sort of southern nonchalance, while German companies exhibit a
rigorous and disciplined approach to the conversion, and the French show a very Gallic
conservatism and mistrust.
Beyond such stereotypes, however, we find that perceptions of the new standards and of
their impacts, degree of readiness, communication efforts, team training efforts and the
application of specific standards vary greatly from one country to another, and that it is
difficult today to detect any truly homogeneous European attitudes, whether along
geographic or sector based lines.
In conclusion, and in order to provide all the keys for the most informative possible
reading of survey results, the following points should be kept in mind:
- Results were obtained for this survey from responses given by the persons questioned.
These responses are thus of a “declarative” nature.
- For a number of countries covered in our European survey, specific national
conditions may influence the results obtained. When this is the case, such characteristics
are detailed in the survey analysis for the individual country in question.
- The survey was administered in all the European countries between 7 March and 15
April 2005. Some data, particularly concerning the quantification of impact and financial
communication, have since evolved, with the recent publication of the first interim
financial statements under IFRS.
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